The present invention relates to a device for sorting coins, tokens, chips and the like comprising a chute which has at least one inlet and a plurality of outlets and which possesses a flat, substantially rectangular cross-section, wherein a movable shunt is associated with at least one of the outlets, said shunt being movable between a channeling away position engaging into the chute and a passage position.
In various devices actuable by money or money-like objects such as gaming machines and/or entertainment devices, coin sorters are used as a rule to separate coins, chips or tokens inserted into the respective machine and/or device into different storage containers or further processing modules. In a gaming machine actuable by money, for example, some of the inserted coins thus have to be conveyed into a pay-out store from where the winnings are paid out, whereas some other inserted coins have to be conveyed into the cash store of the machine. Provision can be made in gaming machines actuable by coins and tokens to convey the tokens into a token store and the coins into a coin store by a corresponding coin sorter.
Such coin sorters are as a rule positioned after a coin checker which first checks the authenticity or value of the coins. A chute of the coin sorter adjoins an outlet of the coin checker, said chute having a sufficient inclination such that the coins to be sorted can fall or slide through the chute. The chute has a plurality of outlets of which at least one is provided with a shunt so that the coins falling through the chute can be channeled away via different outlets depending on the shunt position.
A coin sorter is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,520 wherein two flaps are arranged in a chute oriented substantially vertically and are connected to one another via a spring, with the upper of the two flaps being able to be deflected against the spring with sufficiently heavy coins, while the lower of the two flaps can be actuated via a magnetic actuator. In this already known coin sorter, however, only counterfeit coins can be sorted out from genuine coins, while a further division of the genuine coins, for example into a pay-out store, on the one hand, and into a cash store, on the other hand, is no longer possible. On the other hand, a lot of height is lost until the coins reach the chute outlet due to the arrangement of the two flaps above one another. This is in particular of importance with gaming machines or entertainment devices in which some of the coins should be guided onto a pay-out store in the interior of the machine or device. To enable a modular construction and an ergonomically favorable operation, the coin insertion slot and the coin processing and pay-out unit are combined in one middle machine section here. To be able to work without complex and/or expensive coin conveying devices here, the available falling or sliding height must be used sparingly.